President first approved decision on state border protection in airspace
Previously, the annual decision to protect the border concerned only the State Border Committee activities while now a military component has been added
Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, First Deputy Defence Minister of Belarus Viktor Gulevich explained, “The tense military-political situation led to the fact that alongside the decision approved by the President to protect the state border, a component in the airspace was added. The Armed Forces performed this task before and are still doing it now. Meanwhile, the responsibility is growing in view of the current military-political situation.”
According to Viktor Gulevich, the military were also tasked with strengthening the border troops on the ground, “Our forces and means are in readiness to cover the operational areas. In the southern operational direction, they are located in areas where they can respond in a timely manner to all emerging risks, challenges and threats.”
As a successful example of fulfilling the tasks of protecting the air borders of our country, the Chief of the General Staff cited the recent incident with a Ukrainian missile that flew into the territory of Belarus, “It was the development of the situation and its tension that forced us last year to build up our forces and means of radio engineering troops, anti-aircraft missile troops and electronic warfare. It is the use of these means that enables us to reduce and – to a certain extent – eliminate the overflights of air intruders on the territory of our country. The complexity of the use of all forces and means made it possible to timely detect and introduce failures in the performance of the violator’s task, enabling us to successfully protect our country in this direction.”
The experience of modern military conflicts shows that special attention should be paid to the fight against unmanned aerial vehicles. According to Viktor Gulevich, the funds necessary for this are available, “In the fight against unmanned aerial vehicles, the price of the intruder and the price of the means by which it is destroyed are primarily taken into account. Belarus has chosen electronic warfare means as promising to combat low-altitude UAVs. Fortunately, our military-industrial complex has mastered the manufacture of these tools, we have adopted them, and now they are successfully suppressing control channels and GPS navigation, which makes it difficult and, to a certain extent, excludes the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”
